ELD- Eldraine Flavor Inspirations

I wanted to have a thread to talk about the tropes, themes and stories that Wizard drew on to make the world of Eldraine to both dissucce as well as educate people who are unfamiliar with the stories and themes we are shown (as well as throw in some trivia). I'll add on to this as we see more about the set, how/if the cards flavorfully fit and fill it in with card names instead of the art.

Fairy tales where folk stories that have been passed through the generations, mostly in oral form until such people as Grimm or Perrault collected them and put them into wiring though some authors such as Hans Christian Anderson made up their own tales. These authors gave a baseline for most modern adaptation as such the very famous disney movies, though the story go back thousands of years and have hundreds of versions of the same story. The tales of King Arthur is similar with the story being told orally for years until finally written and re-written, the youtube Overly Sarcastic does a good video on the tale(s);

In Arthurian tales a feature is Arthur meeting with his knights at a round table in order to give each knight equal say since there is no head of the table. Here it looks like we have a similar case, with 5 (maybe one for each color?) knights around it.

Lady of the Lake

Another trope in Arthurian tales is the Lady of the Lake a magical being that often gives Arthur his magical sword. Here we have a merfolk or fae offering what looks to be a magical blade.

Fairy Tales

Rapunzel*

This art show a young maiden in a tower with long beautiful hair. This a nod to the story of Rapunzel, a similar character who was traded to a witch by her birth parents for food from the witches garden when Rapunzels birth mother had a cravings. The food is often called Rapunzel as well.

The Frog Prince*

This is nod to the frog prince the story of a prince cursed into frog shape until its broken by a princess. The art is pretty smart here, hinting that the frog is more than he seems with the crown on the chair. In the older version the frog prince asks (among other slight creepy things) to eat from the princesses plate and drink from her glass so having the frog on the dinner plate also seems to reference this.

These arts are referees to stories of witches living the woods who'd find people (mostly children) and eat them. A famous popular one is Hansel and Gretel which is about two siblings (often put as twins) who are abandoned in the woods and are lured by such a witch with a house made of bread/cake/gingerbead/sweets. This what the first art references with the second I think just the general trope of people eating witches. Also see Baba Yaga. Finally in the forest art it looks like its common for witch to live in the woods on this plane.

Wicked Stepmother*

While not certain this art is most likely meant to play wit the trope of an evil stepmother, complete with servant girl in rages washing the floor behind her and spoiled falsity demonic pup. However, the wicked stepmother trope was made from the Grimm brothers and other authors who couldn't believe a mother could do much things to their own child and often censored wicked mothers to wicked stepmothers in such stories as Snow White and Hansel and Gretal, though nearly every version Cinderella had a stepmother.

True Loves Kiss*

[image]https://i.imgur.com/lxTp9KR.jpg[/image]
Personally one of my favorite tropes we see a maiden seeming breaking a curse on her presumed beloved. Kinds like the wicked mother was changed into the wicked stepmother (see above) true loves kiss was a nicer version then some of the older stories, such a rape and accidental Heimlich, which would be used to awaken/cure the person. Here we have a nice (though not unheard of) twist of a woman saving a man with a kiss(watch me be wrong and this be a curse or something).

Flaxen Intruder (as the user Sniffly figured out this cards name) plays into the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, about a little girl who breaks into a family of bears and after eating their food and using their chairs and beds is scared off when they return. This story has many many version with Goldilocks ranging from an old hag to a little girl and the bears being a range of beasts as well as going from being what seems to be roommates to a family after being renamed from big bear, medium bear and little bear to papa bear, mama bear and baby bear. the end also can range from Goldilocks being scared away, to being reduced by her parents or a hunter or being just plained murdered and eaten by the bears. Magic as done its own twist and made thier version into what seem to be a child hunter who breaks into her preys homes.

UPDATE:

Flavor text on the card is a nod to a popular rhythm in most tellings. Goldilocks would sit in the bears chairs, eat thier food and end up sleeping in thier bed. For each of the bears she would find two of the three items unfit for her "This chair/bed is too hard/soft" "This food is too hot/cold" until she found the third choice which is she often say "is just right" (and often breaking the bed/chairs and tossing out the porridge she didn't eat.

The sorcery part is a reference to the three bears returning home to find their house broken into.

UPDATE 2:

As Maro pointed out, food, chairs and beds would all be artifacts

Poisoned Apple*

A common image from the story of Snow White is her (step)mother offering her a poisoned apple to kill her. In the oringal story is a normal poison though the stepmother is smart and skilled enough to only poison one side and takes a bite to prove to Snow it was safe to eat. The disney and later version would extend this poison to be magical in nature as well. Many also see this as a nod to the story of Eve and Persephone who also got temped with a fruit.

My personal favorite fairy tale after the Oz books is the story of a mermaid who wishes to become human an trades her voice for legs. While many version have a happy ending the original was more tragic. The first part is mostly the same but the original adds merfolks don't have souls unless they marry a human. The sea witch is more neutral party and instead of 3 days to get true loves kiss, the mermaid will die if the prince marries another. Also fun part about how the mermaid will feel like she is stepping on swords when she is human and the mermaid cuts out her tongue to give her voice to the witch. The prince marries another and the mermaid is given the chance to live and become a mermaid if she kills the prince. However the mermaid loves the prince too much and instead dies and turns into an angel like being to help children to someday earn a soul.

UPDATE 1:

Her part is wonderful flavorful. The ability is clearly refernce to the mermaid turning human. The cards flavor text makes wonder if thats is meant to be reference to the original version with this mermaid wanting vengeance from the prince who wouldn't love her.

Gingerbread man*

This art show what looks to be a version of the gingerbread man, a story of a cookie who comes to life and out runs everyone trying to eat him until a fox tricks him into being a snack. This cookie tho looks very creepy and not nice.

Rowan

While not much, Rowan the planeswalker star of this set is wearing a red hood that very red riding hood like as well as cutting what looks to be thorns similar to sleeping beauty.

Lovestruck Beast reference the story of beauty and the beast. A merchant family gets hits on with hard times after the father lose some ships of mercindice. Hearing of a possible surviving ship the merchant promised his daughters gifts and set out to see. However the ship was a bust and the merchant got lost retuning home finding an enchanted castle. After dinner and warmth the merchant left but ended up taking a rose the only thing he could bring back as a gift for his youngest daughter. After spending time with the Beast Beauty grows to love home, though she misses her family. The beast sends her home to visit and Beauty promises to return in a week. However either her family (often her sister), or her own forgetfulness stays longer and when she returns she finds Beast heart broke and on deaths door. Confusing her love and promising to marry him, Beauty finds the Beast had been a prince under a curse until he could find true love. They married and lived happy ever after.

This story is one of many "Animal Husband" stories that can be traced back as far as Ancient Greece with Eros and Psyche.

The flavor of Lovestruck Beast show that even in magic they are a couple with one half making the Beauty and the other half the beast who doesn't want to act without her. The beast is also holding a rose a ionic element of the tale. Finally the flavor text seems to point to how the Beast lived in solitude until he found Beauty. Clever too how Beauty is on the left side that makes the token and Beast is on right as the base creature in the promo art.

The Goose that Laided the golden eggs is simple story. A farmer has a magical goose that lays him a golden egg once a day. Wanting more the farmer cut open the goose to find how the eggs where made but only found the insides of a goose. The moral being don't be greed and be happy for what you got.

The Goose making food is a fun refnerce to this story and it looks like we got a new version of Birds of Paradise.

I wondered if this is really a trope card reference or not. But I do remember many fairy tales ending with two characters running away to live a happy ever after so I guess this slides (even if not intentional)

In the many version of Cinderella she is given a pair of shoes that later the prince uses to find to her after she flees the ball. The material has different from tale to tale from gold to fur. Codified by Charles Perrault the most popular is the idea of Cinderella having a pair of glass slippers.

Flavor wise this is on point, with Cinderella often said to have out fun the Prince and the palace guard at midnight, the shoes having haste makes sense.

In many version of Cinderella for magical (magic wears off) or mundane reason (Thats when the Stepfamily was gonna head home) Cinderella flees the ball often trying to escape before the last stroke of midnight often losing a shoe.

While the adding blue is odd, everything else is a flavor win. The clock “strike” midnight and everything “resets”.

I guess Chulane is a sort of Merlin... but probably we'll see another Merlin too

Private Mod Note
():

Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack

How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.

Does the fact that White has an obsession with fire in this setting have anything to do with arthurian myth or are they just copying Eberron?

White has occasionally dipped into the cleansing/purifying fire trope. Silverfire Ritual, The Circle of Loyalty and Worthy Knight all seem to be using the same kind of purifying flame but that has no basis in Arthurian myth, just White being White; it can have biblical roots but its been used in multiple cultures predating the bible so it's hard to justify it as any specific culture. Also, three cards that seem to reference the same thing is hardly an obsession.